


Nighttime Whispers

by 29_WhiteLilies



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Gen, post 2x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 16:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14116815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/29_WhiteLilies/pseuds/29_WhiteLilies
Summary: Headcanon, in which Jughead and FP headed home with the Cooper women post body disposal and milkshakes and ended up staying over.Betty wakes up from a nightmare. Looking to get a glass of water from the kitchen, she ends up getting the truth (or parts of it) about her mom's past with FP.





	Nighttime Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on this site and the second ever story that I have dared to publish in any kind of way, so please bear with me...
> 
> Also, I have no idea who first came up with the idea that FP calls Alice "Allie" but I love it and borrowed it for this story.

Betty woke with a start. Her heart was racing and her fists were clenched so tightly that it took her a few seconds to even remember how to uncurl them. It was dark around her. Jughead was snoring softly on the cot beside her own bed and one of his hands was still resting on her baby blue comforter. She must have fallen asleep holding it. If Betty’s clothes weren’t still soaked with cold sweat and her pulse wasn’t still way too fast, she would have laughed about the fact that, despite everything they had been through in the past few days, Jug was still too terrified of Alice Cooper to let anything other than his hand invade her bed.

Once Betty realized that the bitter taste in the back of her throat wasn’t going to leave without the help of a glass of water, she carefully slipped out of bed and tiptoed out of her room. She made an effort to be quiet on the way down the stairs. Her mom was likely asleep in the room across the hall and, as far as Betty knew, Alice had harassed FP into taking the couch in the living room after they had silently shared a drink to calm down after the events of the day. As Betty reached the bottom of the stairs, it turned out that she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. To her surprise, she could hear her mom and FP talking in soft voices and there is light coming from the kitchen. The thought of sitting down with them for a few minutes, until she has calmed down completely, suddenly sounded soothing to Betty, but before she had the chance to walk over to them, something made her stop in her tracks. The tone of Alice’s voice was off. It reminded Betty of earlier this night, at Pop’s, when her mother had first lost her grip on her emotions for a minute. She leaned her back against the wall and listened more closely.

“God, FP, I still can’t believe it has come to this. My 16-year-old had to help me get rid of a body. That’s how you know that you officially screwed up as a parent. And it’s not just my kid either, I even managed to pull your son into this and you-“

Alice’s voice broke. Betty can’t remember ever hearing a sound like that from her mother.

“Shh. Hey, it’s alright. Betty is stronger than you think. She’ll get through this. You both will. She’s your daughter, after all. As for Jughead and I, we’re from the Southside. You know how things are done there.”

There was a warmth in FP’s voice that Betty had only ever heard when he was talking to Juggie. The dry sob that followed his words almost broke Betty’s heart. 

“That is why I wanted to get out of there I the first place! I wanted my children to be safe from all that shit. I wanted to leave it all behind. But I guess you were right. Snakes don’t shed their skin so easily. How could I ever believe that it would be easy? That I’d just walk away and that’s that? Seems like all I managed to leave behind is the good things!”

Alice had whisper-shouted herself into hysteria. Betty was about to rush over to her mom to comfort her, but the scraping of a chair stopped her. Moments later, her mother’s sobs sounded muffled and when FP spoke again, his voice was a low, soft rumble that she’d never heard before. 

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. It’s alright, Allie.” 

Betty felt her eyebrows shoot up at the nickname.

More muffled sobs and rustling fabric followed. Alice was not done yet.

“I’m sorry, FP. I’m so sorry for treating the Serpents like garbage. For acting like they were beneath me when I was one of them all along. For acting like you were beneath me. Maybe I never should have left. Maybe the Southside was always were I was meant to be. Maybe you and I were meant to be!”

By now, Betty’s heart was racing for a whole new reason. Her mom and FP Jones? Alice Cooper and … Jughead’s dad? Her knees were feeling more wobbly by the second.

In the kitchen, FP’s voice had taken over again.

“Breathe, Allie! Slow down! You made a good choice. You got the career you wanted, you have a beautiful home and we both have incredible children. How could they not be meant to be? I am so proud of you, you know? So proud that you got everything you wanted. And so proud of my boy, even though he’s probably who he is despite me rather than because of me”, he paused and Betty heard another rustle of fabric, “We did good, Alice. We did really good with these kids. They are living proof that our paths made sense. Don’t get me wrong, I wished you’d stayed with me for longer than I should ever admit out loud, but if our happiness is the price for our kids’, I’m fine with that.” 

Silence fell over the house. Betty could no longer hear her mother crying. Her head was a mess. Her mother, who hated everything Southside, who had given her so much shit over dating Jughead, who had done everything to keep them apart, had obviously been in some kind of relationship with FP Jones. The outbreak she had just witnessed had made her understand that her mother did love her and care for her, and that was great, but a part of Betty still wanted to give her a piece of her mind. Determined to make her presence known, Betty rounded the corner so she could finally see into the kitchen.

Jughead’s dad and her mom were looking into the dark yard outside the kitchen window. Alice, in her short apricot silk nightgown and matching robe, was leaning back against FP’s chest. He, still in his jeans and a white undershirt, had his arms tightly wrapped around Alice’s waist and his nose buried in her mussed hair. They were softly swaying in the silence of the night.

The picture they made had Betty slowing to a stop after three strides. For a while, she just watched them sway. 

Alice turned her head into FP’s chest. 

“God, I loved you so, so much, do you even know that?”

FP hummed a low, confirmative noise.

“Of course I do. Though I’m still not sure if you ever understood how much I love you.”

There was no question for Betty whether or not her mom had noticed FP’s use of the present tense I that statement. However, for once in her life, Alice Cooper simply let something slide. Betty heard her mother sigh and saw her move a little further back into FP’s embrace.

Suddenly, all of Betty’s whirling emotions and questions didn’t seem as important anymore. She turned around and tiptoed back up the stairs and into her room. She sat down at the edge of her bed and took a few moments to process everything she had just witnessed. When Jughead let out a particularly loud snore, she glanced up at him and considered the weirdness of the whole situation for a moment. The longer she looked at his peaceful, sleeping face in the moonlit room, the more she felt her face break into a smile. For a second, she contemplated how this feeling compared to what Alice felt when she looked at FP, then she pushed the thought away and padded over to Jughead’s cot. Betty lifted the edge of the comforter and carefully climbed under it. As she snuggled up to her boyfriend’s warm body, she realized that she actually didn’t care about any of it all. Nothing their parents or anyone else could do could or would take these feelings away from her.


End file.
